Professor Yousaf Hasan, a progressive Urdu, Punjabi language poet and critic is lucid and curt in his criticism. He is at his best when offering it couched in history and current time.
Asked by this scribe whether he was satisfied with the present day criticism in Urdu literature, he said: “Wherever Urdu literature is being written, literary criticism is also found there at one level or the other. Urdu is now a global language. In Pakistan, the Urdu language as a mother tongue belongs to small percent of the population related to central Urdu language tradition. But along with this tradition, from literary point of view, Urdu even in Punjab has established its own graceful tradition. I must confess my information is just confined to Punjab.”
“As far as I know in Punjab the Urdu literary criticism is not adequate. Especially artistic and aesthetic concepts need to be made more scientific and concrete because from progressive viewpoint the criticism which is limited only to pointing out of social material will be considered as general sociology and not literary sociology,” he added.
Elucidating the point he further said: “For the literary criticism to become literary it is necessary that it should name the distinctive artistic and aesthetic qualities of a literary piece. But unfortunately, the poetic form is recognized only by ‘radeef’, ‘qafia’ and the number of lines. The analysis of poetic composition and rhythm is also necessary.”
To a question that in the past poets were critics as well, today the situation is quite different, he said: “In every language informed prose, poetic and fictional literature blooms quite late. From this point of view both in Urdu and Punjabi literary criticism was primarily written by the poets. For example, the common poet of Punjab and Jammu, Mian Muhammad Baksh in his famous ‘masnavi Safarul Ishq’ generally known as Saiful Maluk wrote brief literary comments about the poets of earlier period and his contemporaries.”
Adding he said: “Every poet has his own literary concept which is formed by the world outlook he holds. His literary awareness helps him polish his poetry. A large number of Urdu poets in Punjab have written best literary criticism, but its quality has gone down these days as they write just for book opening ceremonies. In reality, the poets who can write better literary criticism but without philosophical thought their criticism remains deprived of depth and significance.
As to what is the status of progressive literature in the languages spoken in Pakistan including Punjabi, he commented: “The original languages of Pakistan like Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushu, Balochi et cetera are all the old languages. Punjabi civilization is four hundred years old and still progressing. Punjabi language along with its literary heritage is also rich from linguistic point of view. The strength of any language can be gauged from the number of its singular verbs, which are the source of compound and complex verbs. In Punjabi language the number of singular verbs is 2500 while in the Urdu language the number of singular verbs is 350.
“Progressivism reflects man’s activism and it can be described in the Punjabi language in a better way. Besides epics, Punjabi Sufi poetry is the poetry of spiritual and intellectual activism. If the Punjabi litterateurs become responsible and serious in giving Punjabi language more attention they can lend more elegance to the creations of progressive literature, which our masses can also understand well,” he concluded.